VP of Finance / Controller
Location: Nashville, TN metro (on-site)
Reports To: President
Compensation: $150,000–$200,000 base, depending on experience, plus bonus, equity and benefits
Search: Confidential, client name disclosed upon mutual interest
About the Client
The company is a specialty distribution business in the Nashville metro. It buys excess, returned, and obsolete power tools and accessories and resells them to cost-conscious buyers, operating out of a single large warehouse.
Inventory is sourced through OEM, distributor, and retailer relationships, along with opportunistic truckload buys and auctions, and moves back out through wholesale and e-commerce channels. The plan is to broaden the sourcing base and shift the sales mix from wholesale truckloads toward selling individual units directly to DIY customers and contractors through the company's website.
The business is backed by a private equity firm running a playbook it has already executed successfully in industrial surplus, and is held as a long-term investment rather than a quick flip. The management team is being built from scratch: a President joined recently as the first hire, and this role and a Director of Operations are the next two.
About the Role
Our client is hiring its first in-house finance leader. This is a build role, not a maintain role. The company was recently acquired, runs on QuickBooks with a fractional accounting firm doing the books, and has no internal accounting function and no SOPs. You will own all of it.
You will be a hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves accountant first: closing the books, setting up accounting SOPs, and getting clean, timely financials in front of the President and the sponsor. From there you will build the finance function (the systems, the reporting, the KPIs, and eventually the team) as the business scales. You will report to the President and work as his partner on strategy, not as a back-office executor. For the right person, there is a credible path to CFO.
Responsibilities
Accounting Operations & Close
- Own all accounting functions: AP, AR, payroll, general ledger, and the monthly, quarterly, and annual close
- Produce accurate, GAAP-compliant financial statements (Balance Sheet, P&L, Cash Flow) on a reliable calendar
- Transition the books off the fractional accounting firm and in-house; write the accounting SOPs that do not exist today
- Establish internal controls appropriate to a business of this size and stage
- Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local tax and filing requirements
- Complete company's first audit and own ongoing audit relationship
- Manage lender reporting and covenant compliance requirements
Inventory & Working Capital
- Own inventory accounting for a high-SKU, multi-brand, opportunistically sourced product mix: costing, valuation, reserves, and shrink
- Manage day-to-day cash flow and working capital in a business where inbound buying is lumpy and unpredictable
- Build the models that tell the team what we can afford to buy, and when
Systems
- Support the warehouse management system implementation now underway and its integration into QuickBooks
- Lead the eventual full ERP selection and implementation: run the evaluation, make the recommendation, own the project
- Partner on the development of an ecommerce website from scratch
Business Partnership
- Serve as the President's thought partner: bring what you see in the numbers, do not wait to be asked
- Build the operating KPIs the warehouse and sales teams need to run the business, and hold the reporting cadence
- Own reporting to the private equity sponsor, including board materials
- Budget, forecast, and provide variance analysis; partner with operations to drive margin
- Support diligence, modeling, and integration as the platform acquires
Team
- Start as a one-person function, likely with an AP/AR clerk or admin, and build the team as the business grows
- Hire, train, and develop the accounting staff you add
Requirements
Must-Haves
- CPA, or equivalent depth of hands-on accounting experience. This role does journal entries and accruals; an FP&A-only or banking background is not a fit
- Roughly 8+ years of total experience, including at least 5 years post-audit
- Public accounting foundation (audit or tax) followed by controller-level work in small or lower-middle-market companies
- Demonstrated understanding of how to build an accounting function from the ground up: systems, SOPs, and controls that did not exist before you arrived
- Comfort operating in QuickBooks today with a clear-eyed view of what it takes to graduate off it
- Genuine willingness to work in an industrial, blue-collar warehouse environment alongside the operations team
- Based in or willing to relocate to the Nashville area
Nice-to-Haves
- Inventory-heavy experience: distribution, wholesale, manufacturing, or industrial. This is the single most valuable adjacency
- ERP implementation experience, as owner, project manager, or core team member
- Private equity-backed company experience: sponsor reporting, board decks, covenant compliance
- Strategic range beyond the controller seat: the ability to grow into CFO as the platform scales
Why This Role
- Build the finance and accounting function from a blank page and put your fingerprints on everything that follows
- Real seat at the table with the President and the sponsor, from day one
- Credible path to CFO for someone who wants it and earns it
- Simple, cash-generative business with a clear growth thesis and a long-term owner
- A product people actually enjoy: tradespeople walk the warehouse and get genuinely excited